


adflictio

by rudelove



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Blood, M/M, Person of Interest - AU, Suicide, Violence, everyone dies at least 5 times, simulations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 04:51:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10297925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudelove/pseuds/rudelove
Summary: He doesn’t care if it’s real or not. He just wants it to be over.





	

**Author's Note:**

> yet another fic no one asked for but exists anyway - 'person of interest' edition!  
> this fic is a mess and i apologize u___u

**//.**   He kills himself three hundred seventy-three times.

He puts a bullet through his head, throws himself under a train, or a bus, slits his own throat with a knife — he even uses a cyanide pill on one occasion.

He wants it to be over but the process restarts itself from the beginning every single time: waking up at the hospital, the sharp pain behind his ear, managing to escape and go back his team.

The only thing that’s different is the way he dies, the way everything finally swirls into perspective.

  


 

**> sim_105**

  
He’s by the river, sitting on a bench. He’s with Hoseok and Changkyun, Muffin curled up on the ground by their feet as they watch the sunset.

It’s been a relatively slow week. They only received a few numbers and they have spare time to kill, decided to take Muffin out someplace other than the playground they usually frequent, hoping it would get him to stop sulking.

“We should do this more often,” Hoseok says lazily, leaning against the bench with a sigh.

His eyes are closed and Kihyun finds himself staring at the way the golden rays catch in his eyelashes, the soft glow of his skin. There’s something so mesmerizing about it that for a fleeting moment it stops Kihyun from fidgeting so much, makes the restlessness in him simmer down.

It’s almost too good to be true.

“Can we really afford to do it more often?” He teases, playful.

“We can try.” Changkyun grins, tilting his head back so he could look at Kihyun. “Taking some time to enjoy the little things in life is very important.”

“Said by the guy who locked himself up in a room and hid from the rest of world for years.” Hoseok points out, but he’s just playing around, that much is obvious.

Changkyun narrows his eyes, fakes a laugh. “Funny. But don’t forget that I’m the reason you can afford your extravagant lifestyle.”

They start bickering like they always do and Kihyun sits back and laughs, wishing this moment would never have to end.

Only it does, because that’s how it goes down every single time, barely an hour later while they are on their way back. They get attacked by Control’s agents in the middle of the street and the cry of pain Changkyun let’s out when he gets shot rings in Kihyun’s ears long after the simulation has ended.

 

 

 **//.**   He just wants it to be over.

  
  
  


**> sim_052**

 

It’s hot outside, the middle of summer.

It’s just him and Minhyuk, taking Muffin for a stroll around the park, walking freely without having to hide their faces or worry about being spotted by their enemies for probably the first time in almost three years. It feels nice, but that restlessness is still present, buried so deep within him that he can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever manage to shake it off.

He can’t help but look over his shoulder once in a while and search for the nearest ways out, just in case they start getting shot at and they are forced to run for cover. It’s what he was taught to do all those years ago anyway, how to sleep with one eye open and how to fight, to kill.

“Are you hungry?” Minhyuk asks, brushing his elbow against Kihyun’s to get his attention.

“Not really.” Kihyun shrugs. “But I could go for some ice cream.”

“There’s a little vendor down this road,” Minhyuk points, tugging a little at Muffin’s leash to get him to stop barking at the pigeons. “C’mon, buddy, play nice.”

Kihyun smiles fondly, and then— his vision begins to swim and he’s yanked out of the simulation before anything could happen.

 

Hyungsoo’s face is the first thing he sees when he comes back to it, standing by Kihyun’s bed with his arms behind his back. “You will crack eventually.” He says with a click of his tongue. “So stop wasting everyone’s time and tell us how to get to the Machine.” 

Kihyun simply grins, licking at his dry, cracked lips. “I’m going to have so much fun killing you.” He says, and that’s the end of the discussion.

  


**//.**   Minhyuk dies approximately two hundred times, and Kihyun is aware that it’s not real, that it’s because of the simulations and the chemicals they keep poisoning his body with, but it still hurts as if it were real, every single time.

  
  
  


**> sim_407**

 

This is the sixteenth time the team has broken into the hospital and attempted to save him.

These simulations are always the worst because Kihyun’s brain is foggy — too fried from this hell they’ve been putting him through — and he can’t even tell if they are real or not. The smell of iodoform is everywhere, seeing how they are still at the hospital, burning at his nose and getting stuck at the back of his throat, making him throw up hunched over a trash can several times.

He doesn’t know how it happens, or how they even managed to get here in the first place. All he knows is that he’s woken up from his sleep by the sound of the alarms going off and gunfire coming from the hallways, and he’s up on his feet and running through the hospital with Minhyuk’s arm around his waist in the blink of an eye.

Hoseok is taking cover at the back and Gunhee is in front of them, Changkyun waiting for them downstairs, no doubt.

“How did you find me?” Kihyun asks, probably every single time, but the answers he usually gets come in the form of Minhyuk’s smug little smile and a shrug.

At times, he grins, others he frowns, but he always squeezes his arm around Kihyun a little tighter and says, “We’ll talk about that later, sweetie. Now, let’s get you out of here, shall we?”

Five times, Kihyun steps on shards of broken glass and gets cuts all over his feet, leaving behind bloody footprints all over the cold linoleum floor.  

Four times, he fights back. He grabs a gun from one of Control’s assets Minhyuk kills and helps his team out, gets rid of everyone that gets in his way.

He dies three times before they’ve had the chance to leave the premises while the others die only twice.

They only manage to escape out of there alive one time, but Kihyun kills himself before they could go back to their base of operations and he could unwillingly give away the location of the Machine to Hyungsoo.

  
  
**//.** _It's fake,_  he reminds himself over and over again. None of it is real.

 

 

**> sim_608**

 

“Do you remember how we met?”

Kihyun turns around to face Minhyuk, propping himself up on an elbow, smiling at the memory of being tied up to a chair and staring down the barrel of Minhyuk’s gun. “Yeah. I really wanted to kill you.”

His hair falls over his forehead, covering his eyes, and he shakes it off to the side, frowning when it stubbornly falls back down seconds later.

“I know.” Minhyuk smiles back, reaching out to brush the hair away, tucking the long strands of it behind Kihyun’s ear. “It was practically love at first sight.”

Kihyun laughs. “Is that what you would call it? Us fucking around like this?”

“Fucking?” Minhyuk’s smile widens, pushing Kihyun on his back and straddling his thighs to keep him in place, hovering over him. “I thought we were making love.”

It gets Kihyun’s breath stuttering in his throat, his heart tightening.

Minhyuk leans in for a kiss and Kihyun doesn’t push him off, instead, decides to meet him halfway, parting his lips easily. “Making love,” he says, trying it out, and the realization that he likes the sound of it comes almost instantly.

“Yeah,” Minhyuk nods, his hand rough where it’s cupping the side of Kihyun’s face. “I love you, Kihyun.”

Kihyun breathes in, steadying himself for what’s about to happen next.

The smell of iodoform is stronger today, and the low and steady hum of the machines he’s hooked onto is almost inaudible, but Kihyun can tell it’s nothing but his brain playing tricks on him again. He rolls over on his other side and reaches for the gun he knows Minhyuk keeps in the top drawer of his nightstand, puts an end to this before the situation has had a chance to become more heartbreaking.

 

 **//.**   Some simulations are so predictable that Kihyun sees through them almost immediately. They keep glitching repeatedly and sometimes the others get too pushy, trying to get Kihyun to go to the library with them no matter how many times he refuses.

However, that still doesn’t stop him from creating his own world where he and Minhyuk are happy and safe along with the rest of their team.

He shouldn’t — seeing Minhyuk die repeatedly only brings him more pain, but Minhyuk is his safe place, his sanctuary. Thinking about a life they could never have is the only thing that’s keeping Kihyun sane.

Minhyuk is his home, his everything.

  
  


**> sim_399**

They are at the park again but this time it’s just him and Minhyuk, and they stop to get some coffee at a vendor by the fountains instead of ice cream, and this time, Minhyuk buys him pink cotton candy, tears pieces of it and tries to feed them to Kihyun who can’t stop laughing.

“How fucking juvenile,” he says once he’s calmed down enough to get the words out, speaking around his thumb, sucking the melted sugar off his fingers, one by one.

“Yeah, but you love it.” Minhyuk shrugs, undeterred.  
 

 **//.**   He jumps off a building several times but the simulations come to an end before he could reach the ground.

  
  


**> sim_212**

 

He’s at the beach with Minhyuk, the same place his dad used to take him when he was a child.

It’s freezing. Kihyun tightens the scarf around his neck, shoves his hands deeper down the pockets of his coat, and when Minhyuk asks him if he’s ready to go Kihyun nods immediately, saying, “Let’s go before we end up freezing to death.”

“If we somehow survive this,” Minhyuk sniffs, walking close to Kihyun for warmth, “How would you feel about us moving out here once we retire?”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” Kihyun bumps his shoulder against Minhyuk’s, bites on his lower lip to stop himself from smiling.

“No.” Minhyuk snorts. A beat later, “Would you? Marry me, I mean.”

“You have to ask me first.” Kihyun shrugs, kicking a pebble that gets in his way. “Get down on one knee, buy me a ring — all of that shit.”

“You make it sound so romantic.” Minhyuk scoffs, his voice a little high-pitched the way it gets when he’s flustered about something. “So? What do you say?”

“About moving out here or marrying you?” Kihyun smiles innocently like he really doesn’t know what Minhyuk is asking him.

Minhyuk gives him a sideways glance, his cheeks incredibly pink. “Moving in.”

Kihyun hums, thinking it over. He has always liked the beach and he used to want to live here, a lifetime ago. It’s always been reassuring to know that he’s not the only one feeling this way, that the ocean is just as restless as he is, maybe even more. 

They could get a little house, with a back porch where they could drink their morning coffee and Minhyuk could paint the sunrise, the sea, the way the waves crash on the shore and the foam they leave in their wake. Lock up their guns and live a normal life, get away from the all the city noise. They could be happy together, if they learned how to act like normal people, if they were somehow to make it out of this war alive. 

“Yeah.” He loops his arm through Minhyuk’s, smiles up at him. “I’d like that.”

 

Later, once the simulation starts to glitch and the look in Minhyuk’s eyes turns evil, he jumps off the bridge that stretches itself wide over the water and connects the island to the city, but the only thing he remembers about it is that it was cold, that it felt incredibly real.

 

 **//.** He was taught what to do in situations like these — to create a place for himself where he’s happy and safe and to focus on that in order to ignore the pain when he’s being held captive and the only way out is choosing to either comply or persevere and eventually die. 

He was taught to choose the latter.

  
  
  


**> sim_001**

 

He wakes up strapped to a hospital bed with lights pointed straight at his face that burn his eyes and a pounding headache that grows stronger as the seconds go by. He can’t move no matter how much he tries, but a part of him can’t help but feel relieved that he’s still alive, that they haven’t moved him again; at least not for now.

They've been switching locations constantly since he got shot that day at the bank, and fuck — Kihyun can't even remember how that happened, hasn't had one single moment of clarity since then, can't piece together the few, blurry recollections he has from that day no matter how many times he tries to rack his brain for any explanations. 

First, it was the warehouse and then there was the abandoned building — or maybe it was the penthouse at that five star hotel and _then_ the abandoned building, but the order of the events doesn't matter much, really — and they've kept him heavily sedated since then so he couldn't escape. One pill after another, a different location every time he's managed to get a grip on reality, making it harder for his team to come to his rescue. 

They've been at this place for a while now and Kihyun is convinced it's some kind of medical institution, most probably abandoned. He'd spent years running around one so he knows how they look like and how they smell, how the sounds bounce off the walls and make everything sound sharper. But he has no way of knowing what day or month or year it is anymore. He lost count of the days he's been held captive almost immediately, when the pain medication for the healing wound on his shoulder wasn't enough to keep him from breaking out of his restraints and he didn't feel so damn sluggish and weak. 

Everything has been one big blur since then.

His wrists and ankles are tied to the bed and there's a metal pipe of some sort that's keeping his head in place, the pressure of it unbearable like an itch you can't scratch no matter how much you try. There’s the dull throb of pain that radiates from behind his left ear and spreads itself to the rest of his skull and his mouth tastes like cotton, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. 

"Good morning, Kihyun," comes Hyungsoo's all-too-familiar voice, and Kihyun screws his eyes shut, groaning loudly. 

"Ugh, not you again," He sighs, wishing they would knock him up with some more tranquilizers so he wouldn't have to deal with this asshole. “I was hoping you were dead.”

Hyungsoo just grins down at him, looking awfully pleased with himself. "Aren't you curious about what's going on?"

"Not really," Kihyun shrugs — or, tries to, but he can't move; he can't do anything.

"We're inserting a little chip behind your ear," Hyungsoo explains, unperturbed, "So we could track your every movement at any time, just like a dog.” 

Kihyun takes a deep breath to calm himself down, curling his hands into fists. “Whatever,” he murmurs and ignores Hyungsoo’s stupid speech about the greater good and how he would be better off as being their asset again instead of playing for the opposite team.

It’s nothing Kihyun hasn’t heard before, anyway.

 

  
They take him out to the garden in the back from time to time, go for strolls around the grounds when the weather outside is nice in an attempt to get him to feel at ease and gain his trust, hoping he would eventually slip up and give them what they want. They treat him nicely when they aren't given orders to ignore him, threaten him when he’s being unresponsive or tells them to fuck off. They are trying to convince him to work for them again and Kihyun can’t wait for the day they give up and kill him, put him out of his misery.

Today, they are taking him to the little pond that’s close to the woods. The sun is shining and the air is clear, the birds chirping happily, the nurses in charge of him unusually chatty. 

“What’s he in for?” One of the nurses asks his coworker once they get out of the elevator and make their way to the side exit, and the other one scoffs, popping her gum loudly. The guy is new, still green and inexperienced, hands trembling whenever Kihyun as much as glares at him, but the girl is old, has been shoving lime flavored jello down his throat since the day Kihyun got here.

Kihyun grits his teeth, clenching his fist tighter around the shard of glass he’s been hiding for the past week under the mattress, and barely registers the pain when it digs into the skin and breaks it, making his palm feel sticky when the blood begins to flow out.

“He’s a killer,” She replies in a mocking tone, patting Kihyun on the head. “Can you believe it? This little guy is supposed to be _very_ dangerous.”

Kihyun smiles, lets out a long sigh. “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

“Come again?” The same nurse asks, bending forward so she could speak directly into Kihyun’s ear. “I didn’t really get that.”

“You know,” Kihyun starts with a grunt, finally managing to get his restraints loose enough, “the next time you have to tie a patient down, make sure to spend less time gossiping and more time checking whether their hands are empty.”

“What?” They both ask in unison, but Kihyun is out of the wheelchair and slamming the guy against the wall before either of them could finish their thoughts.

The female nurse tries to sedate him but he has her pinned against the door of the exit with his forearm pressing over her neck in the blink of an eye, wrestling the syringe out of her hand and jamming it into her arm. She falls to the ground with a loud thud in a matter of seconds, and before Kihyun could take her keys and ID card out of her coat, the guy is throwing himself at Kihyun from behind and slamming his head against the glass of the door.

The guy is almost twice Kihyun’s size. Kihyun grunts, his entire body sore as he fights back, movements a little slow, lagging a few seconds behind. It takes him more time than it would’ve under normal circumstances, but he manages to fight him off, leaves him lying unconscious on the floor before he could put his finger on the trigger.

“Oh, and next time,” Kihyun says, crouching by the guy’s head, “make sure to use your fucking gun.”

 

 

Getting out of the building isn’t hard. In fact, it’s extremely easy.

He finds the nurse’s car in the middle of the parking lot and steals it, shoots the security guard manning the gates before escaping the premises. He doesn’t know where he’s going and nothing he passes by seems familiar but he doesn’t stop. It’s only a matter of time before Hyungsoo and his agents catch up with him.

Kihyun has been on the run before — it’s what he’s been doing every single day for the past three years, so he knows that he needs to take the tracking chip out before it’s too late, switch cars and destroy all evidence of him ever existing before trying to find his way back home. 

But the problem with having something inserted into your head, Kihyun quickly realizes, is that it makes your brain glitch, sends sharp, nearly blinding pangs of pain bursting through your entire body, strong enough to have you paralyzed.

He passes out seconds later.

  
  


He’s in a public bathroom when he comes back to it, seeing his face for the first time in — _fuck,_  he doesn’t even know how long it’s been, he just knows that it’s been _too_ long.

His face is pale and the circles around his eyes are grayer than the color of the walls surrounding him, webs of blue veins visible under his nearly translucent skin. His hair is a greasy and all over the place, curling a little against his nape. He should really get it cut. 

There is a plastic bag filled with items he doesn’t remember purchasing — or rather, stealing, giving his current situation — waiting for him in the sink, and he rummages through it quickly, taking the items out and lining them up along the countertop: 

A pair of scissors, tweezers, dressings, a lighter — one of the cheap ones with a tacky strawberry pattern on it that makes Kihyun think of Minhyuk — cotton pads and a small tube of antiseptic. There are bloody palm prints all over the mirrors and the sink and the front of his shirt, still glistening wet. He woke up on the floor, curled up on himself, and he had difficulty getting himself back on his feet again, his knees wobbly and head spinning with aftershocks of the pain.

He doesn’t remember the last time he got any proper rest or something to eat, and his body is still buzzing from the remnants of whatever they’d kept feeding him through the IV, so when he passes out minutes after managing to get up, it is more frustrating than it is surprising.

 

  
  
Minhyuk’s concerned face is the first thing that greets Kihyun the next time he opens his eyes.

For a second, Kihyun wonders if he’s dreaming, but the rough pads of Minhyuk’s fingertips against his skin and the worry in his eyes are real, familiar. Kihyun blinks slowly, rubbing his knuckles over his eyes in an attempt to get his vision to focus on Minhyuk.

“He’s awake.” Minhyuk speaks quietly, talking to someone behind his back, and suddenly there’s Hoseok’s face too, the sound of Changkyun’s voice when he asks if Kihyun is okay.

“Hey,” Kihyun greets them weakly. He tries to get up but his elbows slip on the bed sheets and he falls back down with a grunt, too weak to move.

He takes a look around the room and tries to remember why it seems so familiar, all of it: the pattern of the wallpapers and the paintings hung up along them, the seemingly endless rows of shelves stacked with old, dusty books and old little trinkets that are too colorful for Kihyun’s liking. It looks homey and it has a certain warmth to it, the complete opposite of what all of their safe houses look like. 

“Where— Where am I?”

“At my place.” Minhyuk grins gently, helping Kihyun get up when he attempts it the second time, fluffing the decorative pillows to make Kihyun more comfortable. “You’ve been here before… don’t you remember?”

Kihyun nods slowly, figuring that Minhyuk is probably right. He most definitely has been here before. “Yeah, uh. Sure.” Panic surges through him for a moment and his hand immediately flies up to the incision behind his ear, wincing in pain when he presses his fingers over it too hard.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Minhyuk smiles reassuringly, gently wrapping his long fingers around Kihyun’s wrist to pull his hand away. “We took the chip out and destroyed it before coming here. We’re safe.”

Kihyun lets out a sigh of relief, the tension melting off his body, relaxing back against the pillows.

“How are you feeling?” Changkyun asks, stepping closer to the bed.

“I—” Kihyun starts but no words come to mind. He feels like he’d died and got brought back to life several times, bruised and broken beyond repair. “How long was I gone for?”

He doesn’t miss the look Hoseok and Changkyun exchange. “Six months.”

“We never stopped looking for you.” Hoseok adds, rocking on the balls of his feet, and all Kihyun can do is frown.  
  


 

Minhyuk draws him a bath and helps him get washed up, sitting at the edge of the tub as he rinses the shampoo out of Kihyun’s hair. “Hey,” Kihyun tugs at Minhyuk’s shirt, making it damp, turning the fabric a few shades darker, “You can join me. If you want.”

“Are you sure?” Minhyuk asks, a little dent forming in between his brows.

“Yeah,” Kihyun moves around, making some room for Minhyuk and gets himself comfortable in between Minhyuk’s legs once he’s taken his clothes off and joined him. He bites on his lip, says, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, baby,” Minhyuk pulls him in, sliding his arms around Kihyun’s middle tightly, holding him in place. “Can you believe how far we’ve come?” He asks with a little laugh that makes Kihyun smile. “Remember that time you patched me up?”

“Which one?” Kihyun teases.

He’s helped Minhyuk out a lot, dug dozens of bullets out of his body and stitched him up too many times to keep count, but he does know what Minhyuk is referring to; the first time the two of them had an actual conversation, the first time Kihyun realized that Minhyuk was a living, breathing, bleeding human being like the rest of them.

The situation was the same, happened a little over two years ago, except their roles were reversed and Kihyun didn’t bother sticking around any longer than what was necessary.

“In Prague,” Minhyuk says. “I still remember the dinner you made afterwards.”

“I hated you back then,” Kihyun admits. “I couldn’t fucking stand you.”

“I know.” Minhyuk says, pressing his lips behind Kihyun’s right ear, pouting against the soft patch of skin there. “Thank god you came to your senses.”

Kihyun turns around, straddling Minhyuk’s lap. It’s a tight fit and the water sloshes over the edges, but he needs this, needs to hold onto Minhyuk tightly and kiss him until everything starts to feel normal again.

“I love you.” He whispers in between kisses and doesn’t give Minhyuk the opportunity to say the words back.

His heart is beating fast, feeling like it might shoot right out of his chest, burst open at the seams. It’s terrifying, suddenly feeling so much and knowing that all of this could be taken away from him again at any moment if he doesn’t hold onto it hard enough.

They started a war and this — this is barely the beginning.

  
  


Kihyun rests for a few days, because as embarrassing as it is to admit it, he really is in no condition to go out and seek revenge, not after spending the better part of those six months strapped to a bed.

Minhyuk insists on staying with him but Kihyun manages to persuade him otherwise, spends his time watching cooking shows on the couch in Minhyuk’s living room with Muffin’s head resting on his lap, and trying out some of the recipes that he thinks Minhyuk might like.

They curl up around each other every night in Minhyuk’s bed and Kihyun can tell the way Minhyuk’s eyes linger on the scars on his body that weren’t there six months ago. “What did they do to you?” He asks one night, hovering his fingers over the little knot of pink skin below Kihyun’s left collarbone.

Kihyun swallows, pulls the sheets over himself a little higher. He doesn’t want to talk about it, not yet. “Nothing I haven’t been through before.” He shrugs and Minhyuk frowns, reaching out to trail his knuckles down the side of Kihyun’s face. He tilts his head to the side when Minhyuk’s hand slides past his cheek and chases after it with his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss to his palm.

“I’m going to make them pay,” Minhyuk says, his eyes turning impossibly dark. “I’m going to kill every single one of them.”

 

  
  
He dreams that night for the first time in a very long time, dreams of a room covered with mirrors in every corner and the sound of Minhyuk’s voice that reverberates through it, his blood red and thick and cold as ice.

Kihyun can’t see him but he can feel Minhyuk’s breath ghosting over his skin, the warmth of his body pressed up behind him, holding him pinned to the cool surface with his arms over his head, held together in place at the wrists by Minhyuk’s large hand.

“Did you like it?” Minhyuk asks, voice a mere whisper against Kihyun’s ear.

Kihyun gulps, closing his eyes. “What?” His body is trembling, trying his hardest not to move. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, honey,” Minhyuk clicks his tongue, running his free hand down the length of Kihyun’s torso and settling on the curve of his hip, squeezing down on it. “Did you like it when I was killing you?”

Suddenly, Minhyuk’s presence is gone and Kihyun is left shivering, collapsing against the mirror in front of him, panting. There are smudges of blood all over it when he pulls back and his fingers come out wet when he presses them over the fabric of his suit, dark red and sticky.

He doesn’t feel any pain. He digs his fingers in deeper, pressing into his stomach harder but it only makes more blood gush out. He can't feel anything. He licks his lips and stains them red, and the sound of his phone going off on the nightstand brings him back to reality before he could take his clothes off and see where all of it is coming from.

He can practically taste the blood at the back of his throat when he wakes up.

 

  
  
And they do get their revenge, two weeks later, except it comes too easy, too simple and rather anticlimactic.

They set up a trap for Control’s assets at an abandoned warehouse at the edge of the city where there are no cameras and the nearest cell tower is too far away to get a proper signal from, manage to lure them inside and have the entire place blown to pieces in less than ten minutes. 

More keep coming but they get rid of them too, leave an impressive trail of dead bodies on their way to the leader, yet it somehow doesn’t feel right. The blood is too dark and the gun feels lighter than it should in Kihyun’s hand, the crunch of gravel underneath his feet too loud. He gets too carried away with thinking about why everything seems so distorted that he doesn’t notice the bullet flying by five inches to his right and hitting Minhyuk square in the chest, making him stumble a few steps backwards and collapse right by Kihyun’s feet.

And _fuck,_  no, no, this can’t be real, this can’t be happening. He already watched Minhyuk die once, he can’t go through this again. 

Minhyuk is laughing, writhing in pain, and Kihyun drops down to his knees and gently cradles Minhyuk’s head in his lap, takes his hoodie off and balls it up, pressing it hard over the wound to stop the bleeding.

“Stay with me,” Kihyun is panicking like he never has before, hands shaking. “I won’t let you die again.” 

Minhyuk shakes his head and grins, his smile bloody. “It’s okay,” he says, reaching out to take one of Kihyun’s hands in his, tangling their fingers together. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m alright.”

His hand around Kihyun’s goes slack and the light from his eyes goes out, lips still open. Kihyun stays with him, pulls Minhyuk’s dead body behind their van and away from the rain of bullets that’s still coming their way. _This can’t be happening._  Something has been off since the day he escaped, and Kihyun closes his eyes shut and covers his ears with his hands, trying to block out all the noise around him, tries to get his thoughts in order.

He takes deep breaths, tries to calm himself down and tries to think, filling in the gaps in his memory, but his brain keeps taking him back to that night they spent in Prague, the familiarity of Minhyuk’s apartment and the bed they shared together. 

He breathes in and can suddenly taste chemicals on his tongue, can hear the soft beeps of a heartbeat, and realizes, weeks later, that what they put in his head wasn’t a tracking chip after all. It was one of those electromagnetic chips they heard Control was developing, the ones that can control people’s minds and get them to bend to their will, turning them docile. 

 _Fuck_ — none of this is real. It can’t be.

He gets up, wipes his hands clean off the front of his shirt and grips tightly onto his gun. Real or not, he is going to fight. He doesn’t intend on letting another one of the few people he genuinely cares about die, but there’s that blinding pain again, his brain glitching, making him fall down by Minhyuk’s body, passing out before his head could hit the ground.  
  


Kihyun wakes up strapped to the hospital bed, disoriented and weak, his throat dry. He can’t move, can’t speak either. All he can do is lie back and listen to the hum of the machines he’s hooked onto, the footsteps as people walk around his room, scribbling something down on their clipboards. 

“How did it go?” Kihyun hears Hyungsoo ask but he is nowhere in sight.

“The simulation ended before he could lead us to the Machine.” One of the doctors replies, his fingers now on Kihyun’s wrist, checking for his pulse.

“Then start from the beginning,” Hyungsoo demands, voice sharp. “He is going to crack eventually.”

  
  
  
**//.**   He doesn’t care if it’s real or not anymore.

He just wants it to be over.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this is supposed to be the sequel to a much bigger thing but i had to get this done before i could finish the actual fic, so yeah :/ please let me know if there's anything else i should tag cos i always forget about stuff yikes


End file.
